


The Devil you know

by Unbreakable_Vow



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: (lil spoiler: but still dies), Chloe Decker Finds Out, Gen, like ten minutes after she and lucifer first met, mistrusting chloe, pilot AU, the man who shot delilah did not have any car accidents after
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-20 15:36:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10665651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unbreakable_Vow/pseuds/Unbreakable_Vow
Summary: Chloe Decker finds out that Lucifer Morningstar is the Devil soon after having met him for the first time. In solving the case of Delilah’s murder, she finds out a lot more than that.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a translation of the same story in Italian, that can be found here (http://archiveofourown.org/works/9801407). Since english is not my first language something could seem a bit off, sorry for that - Sanoiro helped me a great deal with the translation, if you can read this fic it's only because of her wonderful betaing. I will post the rest as soon as it is ready. Enjoy!
> 
> Ps: paragraph titles are taken by Milck’s song “Devil, Devil”

**1. Devil, Devil**

Chloe Decker sat down heavily on the sofa as if she had no control over her movements and her legs had decided, of their own accord, to not to support her anymore. Even her eyes seemed to have found a mind of their own – it had started an half an hour before, since she had ran away from Alameda Street, and still she could not stop crying.

Judging by how much her hands were still shaking, it was a miracle that she had succeeded to drive home and open the door; even now that she was safe in her house and could smell the familiar scents around her - the chocolate cake her mother must have cooked for Trixie that evening, the scent of lavender she adored, the freshly washed curtains over the innumerable windows on the walls – she could not mitigate the trembling of her hands, her crying and her pounding heart.

Chloe had never, in any of thirty-five years of her life, believed in anything supernatural; her way of life had always been to believe only in what someone could see with their own eyes. And that was the real problem, wasn’t it? Because if she had not seen with her own eyes _that_ scene, if someone had just told her it happened, even if that someone was terrified and shaken as she was at that moment, Chloe knew that she would not have believed them. Because how could she believe that the _Devil_ did not only exist, but that he was there, in Los Angeles, disguised as a man? How could she believe that Satan himself was the owner of a nightclub, the famous Lux even, and that he’d even had the audacity to name himself Lucifer Morningstar, as if to laugh at the foolish humans and their idiocy?

She would not have believed it, Chloe, had she not seen with her own eyes the aforementioned Lucifer threaten the murderer of Delilah McCord of saving a special treatment for him in Hell, before the mirror placed in front of them showed Chloe what Lucifer, who was facing away from her, was showing to the man: a monstrous face completely burned by fire, and two eyes so red that not even in her worst nightmares she could have conceived them.

Chloe had talked with Lucifer just ten minutes before that, when she had questioned him why the shooting at the crime scene had not had any effect on him - how many laughs he must have had behind her back, that monster, when he told her "Because I'm the devil" knowing full well that she would not believe him – and it was during that conversation that she had received a call with the news that her colleagues had been able to find the man who had shot, as well as his home address. She had apologized to the man, running away to catch the killer, but Lucifer was evidently listening to her call, because once she had arrived at Alameda Street, she had heard voices coming from the flat. Hiding to see what was happening, she had found Lucifer there, of all people, with their man.

What she had seen, after, had left her so terrified that she’d had no choice but to run away, away from the incarnation of evil on Earth.

She was still there, on her sofa, shocked, terrified as she never had been so in her whole life, when her mobile began to ring on the inside of her coat’s pocket. Chloe answered without even thinking about it, the mother's instinct prevailed as the noise might have woken up Trixie. On the other end of the line was Dan, his voice annoyed and disturbed by the sirens in the background: "Chloe, where are you? Don’t come to Alameda, there’s no need, we just got here and our murderer is dead. We still don’t know how it happened. Do you know something about this?"

The news that the man had gone to the other world - now, in that surreal moment when everything in Chloe's life had turned upside down, the notion of  _other world_  took a disarming concreteness – did not surprise her at all: the Devil must have killed him.

The Devil, God - and the fact that even  _God_  had to exist caught her breath for a moment, because she had not thought about it yet, but she decided to put that thought aside before she could go in a full panic attack mode on the phone with her ex - they were talking about the  _Devil._ Lucifer, the fallen angel, lord of darkness and king of Hell. How could she even start to explain to her ex that yes, she knew everything, and that there was a literally _hellish_ figure behind all of this? How could she say to him that they had to stop Satan himself?

In no way, here's how, so she just gathered all the courage in her body and said: "No, I don’t."

"I figured," Dan said with a sigh. “Well, I don’t need you to come here anyway. Until we get the scientific results we have no other leads to follow. You go home, tomorrow we’ll resume the investigation. I'm only going to question that Lucifer Mornin- "

"NO!" Chloe shouted suddenly, because the image of Dan dismembered by that burned monster was too frightening to contemplate. She did no longer loved her ex, and certainly the issue of Palmetto Street had put a strain on any sympathy she ever felt for him, but that did not mean that she wanted to see him dead, and after all, he was still the father of her daughter. "I've already been there to question him," she added, lowering her voice and looking for an excuse to not make him suspicious. "He doesn’t know anything. There’s no need for you to go. "

She realised that Dan was not convinced, so she continued, unable to suppress a shudder of fear: "If we need him again I’ll go back tomorrow at the club."  _Or in the Hellmouth,_  she thought, re-imagining Lux in her head, no longer a simple nightclub but a place full of pain and atrocities.

"Okay, I won’t go," Dan said cautiously, as if trying to figure out what was wrong, "but Chloe, go home. You seem tired. Is everything alright?"

"Yeah... it's just been a long day, I will rest. We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay. Goodnight."

"’Night," she said, ending the call and throwing the phone next to her on the couch, as if she wanted to get rid of not only the object but of all of what the evening had brought in her life.

It was not possible, of course, and as soon as she hung up the call with Dan, the image of Lucifer’s deformed and horrible face came back in her mind provoking another shiver of fear, one that was so strong that she surrendered to the instinct to curl her body around herself, her legs tight to her chest with her head buried in them. She felt fragile and in danger, and she felt cold despite being inside the house in the middle of summer.

The Devil had surely not seen her in Alameda, or else he would not have let her run off, that was more than certain. For such a creature it would not have taken long to stop her and hurt her – she had not seen him using his strength, but Chloe was sure that he had much more of it than an ordinary man.

And what about the bullets? Now Chloe understood all too well why he had not suffered any damage from the gunfire: evidently no mortal could harm him in any way, and this was the reason why he had managed to get away without a scratch. Not the same could be said for his friend Delilah - but was she really a friend? Impossible, no one could be a friend of the Devil. She must have been a victim, a famous singer at the mercy of that beast, and maybe then death had been for her a sweet grace, freeing her off the Devil’s grips...

The noise of a body turning over the bed sheets distracted Chloe suddenly by all those thoughts and was the cause of another, far more alarming one: her daughter was in danger. If the Devil discovered that Chloe had seen his true form, if only he suspected that she knew the true identity behind the mask of the Lux’s mysterious owner, he would revenge himself on her and all the people dear to her, first of all her daughter. She could not afford to put Trixie at risk, never, under no circumstances.

She tried to calm herself by making big breaths, and when she felt that the hands did not tremble anymore and that her eyes had stopped tearing -  _I spoke on the phone with Dan, crying?_   _I didn’t even notice -_  she made herself some tea and stood there, on the couch, awake for the whole night to monitor the situation - she could not shake off the fear that Lucifer could come knocking on her door at any moment, and that, if she were to fall asleep, she would be unable to defend her child - and to formulate a sensible plan for managing the situation, trying her best to not panic.

When the morning came, Chloe Decker had thought of a solution that seemed the only reasonable one.

Her priority was to leave Lucifer Morningstar in the dark of what she knew about him, which meant investigate the murder of Delilah McCord as she would have with any other case. And if that meant that she would have to go and talk again with Satan, she would do that, and as calmly as possible, in order to not raise any susppicions. She would then close the case with a logical explanation and would forget this story forever, even though a part of her rebelled against the very idea – Chloe had become a cop to honour her father, and much like him she had a strong sense of justice and wanted to defende the weak, and so the thought of leaving poor innocent people into the hands of that beast made her almost emptying her stomach. But with Trixie to look after she could not afford to be a hero and face him, considering that she was a mere human and had the short stick. Who knows what that monster, with millennia spent torturing people, could do to her beloved child...

With this plan in mind, she also made a mental note to pay a visit to the library and find as many books as possible on Christian mythology as a precautionary measure. Because if it was true that she did not want to let Lucifer know that she knew what he was, she also wanted to at least have the knowledge on how to defend herself and defend Trixie in case something went wrong during the investigation. Although she doubted that there was really something she could do if the Devil decided to target her and Trixie, she had some hope that she would find something that could limit his powers against them, perhaps something like garlic to vampires. She felt like a fool for thinking things this way, but since yesterday’s evening it would have seemed to her just as absurd the idea that the Devil actually existed. Now, on the contrary...

She went to work feeling already exhausted, after a quick shower and bringing Trixie to school, but at the same time resolved on her action plan. Whatever discovery she had made the evening before, she would not let Lucifer Morningstar ruin her life.


	2. Chapter 2

**2. Bones of metal**

 

"He died of a heart attack," were Dan’s first words when she arrived in the precinct, giving her a quick look before going back to look at the documents on his desk. After a moment, he raised his eyes again and watched her for a long time. "What happened to you? You look like crap."

Chloe felt a bit annoyed at his words, but then she had to concede that they were true, and so she just shrugged. "I feel like crap. I’ve had a night full of nightmares," she said, and that wasn’t a description too far from the actual truth – the previous night, every time that fatigue had tried to get the better of her, Lucifer’s murderous eyes were brought to the front of her mind, altering her back to wakefulness, scared and anxious that that monster could show up at her house to hurt her.

Dan watched her a little more, visibly worried about her - Chloe tried to not read too much into it, because with Dan a gesture such as this was so much uncommon than his prolonged and horrible neglecting - but then it was back on talking about work as soon as she was sitting next to him, looking at the papers. "Like I was saying before, he died of a heart attack."

And so it began the explanation of what had happened until now: Eddie Deacon, that was the victim's name, the night before had a cardiac arrest – for Chloe that was not hard to believe: to have that horrible face staring at you could not have any other effect. But Eddie had also been the small drug dealer from which Delilah was supplied with substances routinely. "It could be a case of money owed," said Dan at that point, "but the last call on Deacon’s mobile was toward the 2Vile rapper. Apparently he was Delilah’s boyfriend, which seems suspicious to me."

"Mmm," Chloe muttered at that point, trying to analyse the situation. "Do you think the boyfriend has something to do with the murder?"

"I don’t know," Dan said, running a hand through his hair. "Maybe it really is only a settled deal, but Deacon’s death is a strange one. Something feels very wrong to me. He didn’t have a heart disease, he was in good health... we even found a great golden watch on his wrist, even if his house was falling apart. There is a perfect timing here, don’t you think? Almost unbelievable."

How unbelievable that case was, Dan had really no idea _..._   _Unbelievable, and not in the good sense of the word._  "So," continued Chloe, immediately dispelling the image of that night that had burned in her mind, "you want me to go talk with her boyfriend to clarify a few things?"

"I can go there myself," said Dan, but Chloe shook her head decidedly. She wanted to close the case as soon as possible, and the idea to stay put in the office with the hourrendous images of Satan in her mind was an unbearable option.

"I'll be fine."

"Want me to go with you, then?"

"No, I’ll go alone," she added, realising that Dan, with the prolonged proximity, could start to get suspicious over her strange behavior, and would ask thorny questions, questions that she had no intention of answering.

It seemed that Dan wanted to fight back, and Chloe felt a stab of pain when she realised why:  _He still does not trust me,_  she thought.  _If the lieutenant had not given to me the case he probably would not have allowed me to get my hands on it._  But she didn’t tell anything, and eventually neither did Dan. With a nod, he gave her all the information she needed: the address, basic information about the man, and the warning that he probably would not be alone. "You will find folks with so many weapons on them that you can redo the department’s fusillade," he joked to lighten the mood, but Chloe did not even try to smile. The fastest she closed the case, the better was for everyone: her conscience, her sanity, the poor Delilah, and the memory of the king of Hell.

She drove to 2Vile’s home with that idea plastered on her head, and when she arrived in that huge house she was so determined to follow her plan that when the butler opened the door and she managed smoothly to disarm him and force him to guide her to where the rapper was, she even felt a cautious optimism for the speedy resolution of that investigation.

But quickly as it had arrived, that feeling vanished: Lucifer was there, and Chloe felt panic swell inside her just from hearing his voice from the lobby, clear and strong, contrasting the general silence of the room. Thoughts like  _What is he doing here?_  and  _I'm going to die,_  and also  _I cannot panic_  swirled in her head while trying not to lose her grip on the butler, on whom she was pushing the gun to his neck while leading him towards the huge living room of the villa.

She had known deep inside that sooner or later she would have had to see him again in this investigation, but she had not expect that to happen so soon. Her intentions on which she had decided the night before now seemed like a silly fantasy in front of the knowledge that she had to talk to him, to look into his eyes and try not to cringe remembering his real, horrendous eyes... How had she even thought that she could be able to do this? Lying in front of the  _Devil?_  To not be afraid of him, knowing what he was capable of?

_Stop now, think about Trixie,_  she reminded herself at that moment, looking deep into herself for the strength to face the situation.  _You have no choice, you have to do it for her._  With these thoughts, armed with courage and full of adrenaline, she entered the room and shouted: "LAPD! THROW YOUR ARMS!" forcing herself in every way possible to not think about the real face of Lucifer Morningstar.

***

The situation had gone out of hand, in ways that Chloe could not unravel.  _Everything went literally to Hell,_ she thought, laughing in her head at herself for that stupid joke, not without a touch of hysteria.

Things, she thought trying to take stock of the situation, had gone more or less like this: at 2Vile’s home she had found Lucifer who, apparently, had found the same lead, _then_ had discovered that Eddie had been paid by someone to murder Delilah, and _also_ had been able to get important information – however, treacherous as his legend depicted him to be, he was willing to disclose them only if he could continue the investigation with her.

During his speech, Chloe had tried in every way to not remember  _how_  Lucifer had obtained that lead, and despite the deep cutting fear and the desire to escape far away from that monster, she had listened with a calm façade, a remaining skill from her acting days in her youth - it had been horrible, while listening Lucifer talk, discovering that the Devil had seen her nude scenes; in that moment, pure disgust had gone through her veins.

Then she had managed, in a way she could not explain, to resist his hypnotic power without any effort, amazed even that it had been so simple. "That's it?" she had asked puzzled, for a moment not frightened at all by the situation. "This is your big trick?"

Even now that she was in the car with him, heading to Delilah’s psychologist, Chloe was not entirely sure that Lucifer had not fooled her in some other way, because how could she, normal human being, resist the powers of Satan? The legends about how the Devil deceived and enchanted all the ones who stood in his path were endless, starting with the story of the first female human, Eve; so how could she succeed without any problems?

It was this, more than anything, that had convinced her to take him there when all her instincts had yelled to run away from that monster. A stupid, perhaps false, small hope in her that she was somehow immune to his power, that she had even a slight chance to take him down if he was set to attack her. The hope that even if he surely was stronger than her and also immortal, she had some advantage over him.

It was obvious, now that she thought about it, that an advantage like that was so useless that in an actual fight it would make absolutely no difference: Chloe blamed the strong shock that she still felt for having the stupid idea to acquiesce to his request. Between sexual jokes -  _Does he do nothing but flirt?_   _-_  she was trying to will herself not to panic, and thinking about the best way to get the information he had and get rid of him. That was when her phone rang and she answered it without thinking.

Blood literally froze in her veins when she heard what the principal of Trixie’s school had to say.

"Are you sure that Dan cannot come?" she said as a last ditch effort, but she knew it was all in vain: for Dan work came before anything, his own family included, and he would never go to Trixie’s school to talk to the headmistress if he was on an investigation.

But she could not go there: she had the  _Devil_  in the back seat, for God’s sake! And then she would have to take Trixie back home – if that happened that monster would find out where they lived-

"Miss Decker," said at that point the headmistress Thompson on the phone, voice decidedly more gentle. "I'm afraid that you must come at once. This is a matter of utmost urgency."

_I can’t let Trixie there, and I certainly can’t tell Dan I'm not going to her school because I'm keeping an eye on Satan,_  she thought, fuming, before murmuring an assent to the principal and quickly dropping the call. She cursed for the umpteenth time that ex bastard of her’s and the situation she was in; she thought about how delighted she would be when the divorce was finally progressed, and Lucifer would be away from their lives. With a calmness that did not possess she said to the Devil: "We’ll make a pit stop. I have to pick up my daughter."

"What? But detective, there is an ongoing investigation!"

"This is an emergency, mister Morningstar," she continued with a cold voice, "and it will not take more than a few minutes. I just have to take her home.” _It’s not as if I like the idea._

"Can’t she get herself home?”

"She's seven!"

The Devil seemed to quiet down at that, and Chloe had the horrible feeling that he was thinking about how to get back at Trixie for that mishap, before taking a deep breath and deciding that she could not continue in that way. Chloe has found herself, for a stupid moment in which she’d had a delusion of omnipotence, in a situation in which she had to continue the investigation with the Devil behind her shoulder -  _Ah, the irony_  - and being always so tense would do no good to her nerves and her self-control. She had, as impossible as the concept was, to try to relax more,  perhaps even slightly lower her guard, because if anything of years of ambushes and in-the-long-run investigations had taught her, was that a constantly stressed lookout ended only in slower reflexes and a weakness that a killer could use to their own advantage. And which killer could be better that the Devil? Well, certainly there was none.

So she turned onto Riverside Drive trying to think of Lucifer as a simply eccentric man, with a normal face - not burned, not with monstrous eyes – and arrogant personality. An idiot like many others, the kind of man she had to face every day: one who boasts of himself for having seen her boobs as a girl and made too many sexual innuendos. Your usual macho male, actually.  _If that’s not a world made for men, where even the Devil is one,_  she thought bitterly, as she parked in front of Trixie’s school.

"Here we are. Wait here," she commanded sharply, and calmed down a bit when he said: "With pleasure, I hate children" making himself comfortable in the back seat.  _Good, if you know what's best for you, stay there,_   thought Chloe.  _I would spend the eternity in Hell before letting you touch my daughter._

***

Trixie had kicked the private parts of a child at least twice bigger than her because she had called her a _dirty wab_  and had put on Snapchat a stolen photo of Trixie with Chloe and Dan, commenting that Trixie had to be adopted because her skin and eyes were much darker from the one her parents had.

Chloe could not be more proud of her.

She had already realised that Trixie was in the right when she had entered the principal’s office and, instead of sad and low-spirited as she had expected her to be from the stern tone of the principal over the phone, Chloe had found her daughter with a serious and resolved face – in her eyes there was a pride Chloe knew she had inherited from her. 

When the principal had asked Trixie to go out, she had given her daughter a big smile - that smile, now that she had heard the full story, acquired even more value.

What she had to do as a responsible adult, though, was to at least look contrite in front of the headmistress: so she listened with mock seriousness her speech and assured her that she would punish Trixie – yet not before making sure that the horrible bully received an adequate disciplinary sanction – all the while thinking, truthfully, that she would buy as a reward to her monkey the largest chocolate cake that she could find. At least, once she closed the Lucifer case.

Lucifer, who was still in the car, and who would soon meet Trixie.  _Don’t worry,_  she reminded herself, as she signed the anticipated outing sheet,  _don’t think about it, and everything will be fine._   _You must not let him suspect anything._

At that moment, a girl screamed.

Chloe barely had a moment to think before her instincts took action: she was out the door the next second, looking frantic around in search of the girl who had screamed.

She froze, suddenly, when she got a glimpse of Lucifer, because he was, instead of being in the car waiting, just two steps away from her, along with her daughter’s bully - now crying in audible sobs - and her daughter, Trixie, who smiled a smile that went from ear to ear.

Panic stopped her breathing -  _the Devil is near my daughter why is him with Trixie Trixie is in danger -_  so much that all that came out of her mount was a faint: "What did you do?" as she knelt in front of Trixie to see if she was harmed, interposing herself between her daughter and Lucifer, while her daughter continued to look at the Devil with a smile so blinding that it could be envied by the Sun.

"It's all being resolved, detective," Lucifer’s voice was heard behind her. "It seems that someone here feels a little guilty."

Trixie had even the audacity to laugh _,_  and it was only then, after making sure that her child was unharmed, that Chloe linked the dots: Trixie must have told the whole story to Lucifer, as she waited outside the office, and he must have done something to the bully – perhaps showed his face, his eyes, or worse? - to scare her and take revenge for Trixie.

He... he had taken her side, had defended Trixie. The realization made her almost dizzy.

"What happened?" the headmistress asked getting out of her office, but Chloe ignored the question - Lucifer was already explaining, anyway - and focused her attention on Trixie. "Are you okay?" she asked, stroking her daughter’s hair, more in order to reassure herself that the child, who, truth be told, was far from having a need of comfort; Trixie seemed, indeed, to be very happy with the situation. 

"Sure!" Trixie said, before giving her a calculating look. "Am I grounded? 

"For having done the right thing?" Chloe whispered to Trixie, before giving her a small smile. "Of course not. But let's not say that to miss Thompson, mm? You must pretend to be very sorry. "

Trixie gave a little "Mmmfh" of annoyance before looking behind Chloe, where Lucifer was still talking to the headmistress. Chloe turned around: the bully of her daughter was gone, and the principal seemed completely taken by Lucifer who was telling her something about... candies...? Whatever it was, the headmistress seemed incapable of taking her eyes off him.

Chloe was not surprised at all: she had briefly seen the night before, at Lux, how Lucifer was able to charm people effortlessly - and after all, even if Chloe tried not remember it, he was the Devil: enthralling had to be as easy as breathing for him _. if that being has even the need to breathe._

Why was she immune to all of this, it still remained a mystery.

She turned to her daughter and asked a question for which she already knew the answer: "Did Lucifer scare that girl?"

"He did it for me!" said  Trixie defensively, confirming her suspicions. "I told him she had been bad."

Chloe nodded, hopeful for the first time since she had received the call from the headmistress. Truth be told, she did not know why Lucifer had decided to defend Trixie, but of course this meant that, for the time being, he had no bad intention towards her, and that perhaps all that mess could be resolved more easily than she had thought at the beginning, if her daughter was not in any real danger. But trying not to make the same mistake she had do just before in 2Vile’s house -  _Do not think you're safe from him,_  she reminded herself,  _we’re talking about the Devil –_  Chloe stood up up to ask the principal if it were possible for them to leave: there was still a murder case to solve, and doctor Martin was waiting for them.

The conversation between the headmistress and Lucifer, when she began to pay attention to it, had moved on...  _inappropriate arguments._  "Mmehm," she coughed to attract their attention, noticing the surprised look of the woman’s face - almost as if she had forgotten where she was, and Chloe hoped so, because they were talking about porn literally surrounded by elementary school children - and the amused one of Lucifer. “Well, miss Thompson," he said at that point, "it seems that it is time to say goodbye, duty calls. Come to Lux whenever you desire, if you want to continue this _interesting_ conversation."

The headmistress seemed to find the idea wonderful, judging from her expression, and Chloe was almost throwing up at the thought that someone might find attractive the idea to go to bed with the Devil, and for a moment the panic almost returned to take possession of her. Trixie’s hand grip brought her back to reality, and she promised herself that she was going to talk to the woman as soon as possible: she had to advise her to stay away from that man – obviously, she could not explain why, nor that he was not exactly a man, but she was sure that something would come up in her mind.

With renewed firmness, she just nodded at the headmistress and got out of the school, with Trixie happily hopping on her right and Lucifer walking to her left.

There, in the park of the building, with a timing that rivaled that of the case she was trying to solve, Dan was coming towards them.


	3. Chapter 3

**3. That won’t be me**

 

"So, detective," Lucifer said sitting on the couch next to her with a cup of steaming coffee in hand as they waited outside the door of the psychologist’s studio. "Your daughter was a mistake, or planned?”

Chloe, fortunately, had just finished drinking, because she was sure that she would have spat out whatever had been in her mouth at that moment, so shocked she was by the question. "Planned," she said emphatically, looking grim at Lucifer. Was he implying something about Trixie, perhaps how she did not love her enough? Did he want to repeat that scene that happened with Dan – that "You should refrain from arguing in front of the child, it is unbecoming" which had frozen her in her spot because he had touched a sore spot there? What kind of a mother was she, if even the Devil could give her lessons on how to raise her daughter?

But Lucifer, instead of following the course of her thoughts, came up with something else: "I never understood the desire of you human beings to procreate."

"Luckily."

"I mean, children? Horrible, hideous creatures. _" Then why did you help her?_  she wanted to ask, but before she could speak Lucifer continued: "Oh, yours is fine. I mean, nothing to be proud of, but nothing to be too embarrassed about, either. That’s quite good, isn’t it?"

 _He does not have the slightest clue about human relationships,_  Chloe thought stunned.  _He’s not rude, he’s clueless._   _As if you were talking to a child._  Which made sense, thinking about it, because he was not a human being; still, Chloe was struggling in every way not to think of him as the king of Hell, so she said what she would have said to an ordinary man if she had to reply to such a rude statement: " Are you at all aware of how dickish you sound?"

"No?" He said perplexed, and Chloe, who was still wary of Lucifer, had to admit he seemed sincere, and this, against all logic, almost made her want to laugh.  _Here comes Lucifer, Prince of Darkness, floored by good manners._

A moment later, Chloe thought of how impossible she would have considered this scene would ever be to be played out the night before, when the vivid memory of Lucifer’s face had fear tightening her guts. She had thought, until just half an hour before, that Lucifer would have launched on her without remorse, that as soon as he saw the cocky detective who had made fun of him - "Ah, yes, immortal," she had told him with sarcasm just twelve hours earlier, when she still didn’t know how much truth there was behind her words, "and is it written with one or two m? I always forget"- he would have made her pay for her impudence by avenging himself in an incredible cruel way. But Lucifer had been until then at his worse boring with all his sexual innuendos, at his best useful to track the doctor and for the help he had given to Trixie - and this, in particular, had made it clear to Chloe that there was something wrong in her reasoning about Lucifer so far.

To say that she was really puzzled would have been an understatement. The figure of Satan, as he had always been described - and even what she had seen him doing to Eddie Deacon – did not follow at all with this figure of a peculiar man in suit and expensive shoes, with a strong English accent and a joke always ready on his tongue; she had feared that the Devil would come to hurt her, but who she had seen up to that point was the odd man next to her. Chloe had to admit that if she had not seen that scene last night, she would have never thought that this man could be the Devil.

Was he faking it? It was a possibility, for sure; it could be that Lucifer was performing to try to make her lower her guard down. But Chloe decided to chase that idea away: her sixth sense told her that Lucifer was not pretending, not even a little, and after all she could not find the reason for all this subterfuge when he was infinitely more powerful than her and extremely dangerous.

Although the Lucifer that played the piano and said: "I could swear I've seen you naked. Have we had sex? "did not seem _dangerous_ , and even though she was apparently immune to his magician tricks.

Yes, Chloe could be described as utterly confused.

"Speaking of dicks,” Lucifer said, interrupting her thoughts. "What’s wrong with your ex-husband?"

 _That he does not trust me,_ Chloe thought bitterly,  _as all the station doesn’t, after Palmetto. That he thinks that I'm crazy._   _That he’s never here for Trixie when she needs him._   _That... that he left me alone to face the judgment of all our colleagues when Malcolm got into a coma._

"No idea," she said, because she had never told anyone how much Dan's betrayal had hurt her, and she would certainly not start with the Devil. But she understood why Lucifer had asked that: it was evident during their encounter outside Trixie’s school that Dan had wanted to question her about her visit to the rapper’s house, and that he had been surprised at the presence of Lucifer Morningstar alongside her – he’d had to remember what, the night before, Chloe had said the night before.

The night before, when Dan had gone looking for Deacon despite that the task had been assigned to her, and Chloe, upset as she already was at the time, had not even realised how much Dan had so blatantly proved with that gesture that he did not trust her. Having realised it after - there in front of Trixie and Lucifer, where she could not scream at him on what a bastard he was and how much she was happy that their relationship was over - had brought only endless frustration.

Closing that case, now, would show to Dan and the station that she was a great detective and that no one should doubt her ability.

"Strange," said Lucifer after watching her for a while, and Chloe suddenly got that Lucifer had tried, with that question, to get some more information from her, probably applying to the task a little of his supernatural powers to get her to confess. Something she had not done.

All of this was starting to amuse her.

"Did my father sent you?" asked then Lucifer – his look, until that moment  relaxed and curious, now took on a hostile expression, as if he was standing in front of an enemy. Chloe didn’t have the time to process the sudden change of his demeanor or the meaning of those words as the door opened, and psychologist Linda Martin ushered them into her office. 

***

The psychologist -  _one of the best in Los Angeles,_  Joe had told her over the phone when she had passed him the name Lucifer had gave her,  _and fucking expensive as well -_  and Lucifer were shamelessly flirting, or maybe it was better to say that they were eye-fucking. In front of her. As they talked of a possible suspect in Delilah’s murder.

Chloe did not know whether to laugh or cry.

"But you don’t look at me that way!"

"What way?" she said, feeling on the verge of a nervous breakdown, because  _I am with the Devil, we are solving a murder case while he seduces all women in Los Angeles_  was too much for her sleep-deprived brain to bear.

"With carnal desire," said Lucifer, having also the audacity to look annoyed, as well as puzzled.  _You don’t know the half of it._

"It’s because it doesn’t exist," she said dry, trying to keep the hysterical laughter that was growing into her chest at bay. "Truth be told, I find you repulsive."

"You are immune to my charm. Fascinating," he said staring at her, but at that moment doctor Martin interjected with a phrase that Chloe didn’t heard, deciding to dive into her thoughts and leave those two  make sexual innuendos until she had calmed down her inner hysterics a bit.

Why had it not happened with her? She would have loved to give herself the answer that, having seen his ugly true face, there was no way that she could be attracted to him now, even when he was wearing his human mask. But that was not the whole truth, wasn’t it? Because when she had seen him the first time and had talked to him Chloe did not know yet that he was the Devil, and what she had felt for him had just been an objective assessment of his appeal - she was not blind, and that body, face, eyes and voice were a good combination on him - followed by a growing annoyance over his sexual joke. There had not been a sudden desire to tear off her clothes that seemed to pervade all the women he met, no hanging on his lips or basking in his attention.

What was wrong with her? It was a thought too big to contemplate, just as the existence of God – in a terrible, blinding moment she thought if the two things were connected somehow, if God had not somehow specifically created her to resist to Lucifer - and she felt herself starting to lose grip on her self-control.  _Enough of that,_  she ordered herself,  _I have to calm down._   _Things are getting out of hand._   _No reason to ask myself these questions: Closed this case, I will never see Lucifer again._

She told herself that the emotional state in which she was right now was the calmest that she could reach under these circumstances, and interrupted the porn conversation that was going on between Lucifer and the psychologist. "Doctor Martin," she said, "I know it's against you professional ethics, but there is still murderer out there and a girl is dead. That name would help us a lot in the investigation. "

"All right!" Said the doctor, with a tone slightly too high - by the amused look on Lucifer’s face, Chloe guessed that he was complimenting himself for a job well done. "I'll tell you: is Gray Cooper."

"The actor?" Chloe and Lucifer asked together, who then added: "the one married to, what's her name, Amanda Bello? But that's horrible!" At Chloe’s perplexed glance, he clarified: "He is so... square-jawed, vanilla. So ordinary. From Delilah I expected better taste in men, I can’t- "

"Thank you, Doctor," Chloe interrupted, pleased that she had not discovered another unexpected side of Satan, just the idiocy shown until then. "We'll be in touch if we still need you. Excuse us for the inconvenience."

"Ah, detective," Lucifer said at that time, grasping her arm to stop her from standing up from the chair - the fact that she was not terrified by that grip was the final proof of how her image of Lucifer had changed after the episode with Trixie. "I fear it’s not possible for us to leave yet. I have to respect the deal made with the doctor first."

 _Deal?_  Chloe thought amazed, looking at Lucifer and the psychologist trying to understand what was going on.  _What deal?_

"Would you mind..." he continued, when it became apparent that Chloe did not know what to do, "waiting outside?"

Lucifer looked amused at the doctor, who laughed like an excited little girl, and Chloe realized what she had lost in that minutes she'd had played out her inner drama.

_God, no._

"Now? In the middle of the investigation?" she whispered impatiently to Lucifer, who was looking at her with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance. "Do you really want to have sex with her right now?"  _Without her knowing who you are?_  she added mentally,  _And you think that she would accept if she knew?_   _Would anyone have accepted to have sex with you if you told them who you really are?_   _How deep your lies go?_

 _But,_  Chloe thought while Lucifer, seeing her reaction, was organizing another ‘appointment’ with the doctor,  _Maybe I’m wrong._   _There are no lies: you say who you are, even today you’ve said it many times._   _It’s that people do not believe you._   _From your point of view, you don’t think you're doing anything wrong._

The thing that worried her, as they walked towards the car, was that Chloe was beginning to think that as well. 

*** 

She had lost Lucifer.

How did that happened, Chloe couldn’tt say. One moment she was looking for a parking space near the set where Gray Cooper was filming a scene from his latest film, and the moment after Lucifer had exclaimed "This is boring" before opening the door and getting out of the car literally  _in the middle of the street._

By the time she had nailed down and switched on the lights, Lucifer was gone.

 _Does he have also the power of teleportation?_  Chloe thought impatiently, as she put the car in a place that was obviously not for parking. _God, I can’t believe I thought that and was serious about it,_  she thought as she passed the crowd that was stationed on the hurdles,  _what has my life become?_

There, in the middle of the scene, was Lucifer, with the director and the stuntman who were literally shouting at him. He was calm and quiet, as if he didn’t even realise the mess he had made while he felt fully entitled to pounce on the set in the middle of an action. "He’s with me," she said when she finally approached him, showing them her badge. "LAPD. We need to ask some questions to Gray Cooper."

"What happened?" said a voice behind them, and both she and Lucifer turned around to find Gray Cooper staring at them, his face disguised to look like something out of a car accident, with just a hint of blood on the cheekbone and nose, his blue eyes to stand out making him harder-looking and charming.

Chloe had to admit that she agreed with Lucifer’s analysis description: that man was ordinary.

"Mister Cooper," she said approaching the man, with Lucifer following on toe. "I’m detective Decker, and he is... Lucifer. We have some questions to ask about Delilah McCord's death. "

"Ah, Delilah," said Cooper, giving a strange look to Lucifer before going on. "I heard the news this morning, a terrible thing. We did a movie together last year. We were very good friends. "

"Friends... nothing more than that?" Lucifer insinuated, and Chloe noticed Cooper's face becoming more rigid.

"Only friends," he said. "What are you implying?"

"Mister Cooper, when was the last time you heard from Delilah?"

"Detective, if you would be so kind," Lucifer interrupted, "may I? Then you can continue with your boring questions.”

Chloe did not even have time to reply before Lucifer turned to Gray Cooper, and she noticed the difference in his eyes – she was beginning to recognize this as the moment he chose to use his powers. "Tell me, mister Cooper, what do you desire most in this world?"

 _No, it’s different from before,_  thought Chloe, as he saw the look of Cooper’s face becoming more dazed, as if he was remembering,  _because it’s not seducing, it’s manipulating._   _He uses a different power depending on who he’s facing... or it’s its power to adapt itself to the person._

"I..." Cooper said, sounding embarrassed. "I want to become the president of the United States."

"Ah!" Said Lucifer, giving her a smile. "Who's the Devil now?"

Chloe dismissed his comment and focused on how to use that knowledge to her advantage. "President then, mh? A pretty big ambition. It would be a shame if there was a stain on your criminal record, wouldn’t it? "

"What does that mean?" Cooper demanded, looking suspicious and angry.

"Mister Cooper, were you having an affair with Delilah?"

Before the actor could answer, though, a black car parked behind them, and Amanda Bello opened the passenger’s door before she started running toward her husband.


	4. Chapter 4

**4.** ** Promise of gold **

 

"Amanda and Gray didn’t know the shooter," Chloe muttered to Lucifer, who was next to her at the bat counter with the intent to fill what would surely be a generous amount of whisky into two glasses. "But there must be a connection," she continued taking the offered glass in her hand. "It cannot be a coincidence that the two men had the same watch."

She had noticed that only when Amanda had arrived on the set, when Gray Cooper had raised his arm to stroke his wife’s hair. She had then immediately remembered what Dan had described to her that morning, and she had studied a little the watch around the actor’s wrist before everything had gone out of the window with Gray Cooper and his bodyguard engaging in an angry fight –  _At least now Cooper will have a bit of real blood on him,_  she had thought when the cops had separated them and took both of them, along with Cooper’s wife, to be questioned in the precinct.  _I bet it won’t look on him as good as the fake one._

Shortly after, Chloe had called Dan to ask him to confirm her intuition about the watch: once the suspects had arrived at the station she, unfortunately, had found herself arguing with the police officers – something that Lucifer had found highly entertaining. Her car had been towed due to occupying unconventional parking space, and she had known from experience that to get the officers to give it back would have taken way too long for her for questioning the suspects herself.

The resolution came with a little help from Lucifer: it had been decided that the car would have to remain for a day at the tow yard - "It's bureaucracy, miss," the policeman had said, "even between colleagues" - and Lucifer had offered to continue their investigation with one of his cars, either the Corvette which was still parked at 2Vile’s home or getting and the other one which was parked at Lux.

At Lux they had gone then, waiting for any useful news from the station, as they tried to reorganize their ideas on the investigation that it had proved to be more complicated than expected - Lucifer had once more proved to be extremely useful, then, when he told her his meeting of that morning with Delilah’s ex-fiancée and ex-manager.

Before Lucifer, Chloe had worked so well with a partner since... maybe never before. She wondered what that said about her.

"Maybe Delilah gave the same watch to both of them, Deacon and Cooper? I mean, maybe it was a gift that she gave to all her... "

"Are you perhaps implying, detective, that Delilah was having sex with that maggot?"

'Well," she said, "on that list we already have Jimmy Barnes, 2Vile and Gray Cooper..."

"Touché," Lucifer admitted picking up his glass. "You may have a point." Then he added, almost absentmindedly: "Before she died, Delilah asked me if she had sold her soul to me in exchange for her fame. Obviously that was not the case, I do not collect souls, that's Dad’s thing. But certainly, if she had, I would have chosen some better men for her."

Chloe could not help it anymore: she laughed. She laughed at the absurdity of the situation, which was truly going against all logic, and laughed for the sequence of conflicting emotions she had felt through the whole day. "God, what am I doing here?" she asked, and she did not know if she was asking that to the Chloe that the night before had been terrified by that very possibility of being next to the Devil, or to the teenager Chloe of years ago who had told her mother "I do not believe in all that Church’s crap!" or, more to put it plainly, to nobody in particular.

"Wrong deity, but yes, that is the eternal question," Lucifer said with a smile, which made Chloe laugh even more.

"No, seriously," she said, shaking her head, "what am I doing here, at Lux, with you?"

"I don’t know detective, you tell me," Lucifer said, visibly amused. " I mean, despite your proclaimed revulsion, you can’t deny that there is a connection between us."

He said it with such emphasis that its comedic intent was obvious, and indeed Chloe laughed: within herself, though, she admitted that those words were definitely close to the truth. Her being immune to his powers, them working so well together, that fact that she had gone from being completely terrified to reach a blend of amusement and exasperation when she was near Lucifer, all that within less than a single day... there was  _something_  there, something that Chloe could not understand.

Something that was making her remember the scene in Alameda Street with less fear.  _I almost feel sorry to not ever see him again after this case is over,_  Chloe found himself thinking.

"Tell me, what do you desire?" Lucifer asked then, finishing drinking his whisky.

"You mean what 'I desire more than anything else in this world'?" Chloe joked, ending her drink as well, and Lucifer snorted.

"No, no tricks. Not that they work on you, you freak," he said amused, and Chloe shook her head pouring herself another drink, thinking  _if I’m strange even for the Devil, then there's just no hope for me._

"I warn you, my answer is a trivial one," she said. "I want to help people."

Lucifer raised his eyebrows with the obvious intent to make fun of her, so she laughed and hurried to continue. "I’m not joking. My father was a great cop, really, and my mom was an actress. She wanted me to start an acting career. So I did, I took off my top - as you can imagine this wasn't really contributing to the improvement of society - "

"Oh, I disagree," Lucifer said. "I love that movie."

Chloe snorted, ignoring the comment. "So I quitted. I decided to follow in my father's footsteps. I faced all the jokes and being looked down by the other cops and... and then I became a detective, and I found a whole new way to ostracize myself."

Lucifer watched her for a long moment before he inquired: "Is it why your ex does not trust you?"

 _Oh,_   _he’s more intuitive than he appears,_ Chloe thought.  _And now what do I do? Do I tell him about the Palmetto Street?_   _He would be the first person to whom I speak of that._

She was fighting with herself ver that decision when she was saved from deciding thanks to the bartender – the woman behind the counter had not stopped looking at her since she came into the club with Lucifer. "It’s a shame that your little protégé  isn't around to collect the check," she spoke to Lucifer while watching TV and polishing the glasses behind the counter, "seeing how her album has risen in the chart."

Chloe barely noticed Lucifer jumping at his bartender’s voice, or what his answer was, because she was too busy connecting the pieces that that information, inadvertently, had made it easier to put together. The picture that came out in the end was one of a disarming clarity.

"Detective?" asked Lucifer seeing her in a trance, but Chloe immediately stood up and started gathering her things.

"Delilah didn’t give the watch to Deacon," she said to Lucifer who, seeing her standing, was already putting his jacket on. "Barnes did. He’s the instigator. "

She would have considered it a trick of the light, if she had not known the truth, but she knew it, and for a moment in Lucifer’s angry expression, instead of his dark eyes, had appeared a blinding red. She tried not to show her fear except for a small twitch of her arm, and was suddenly brought out of that serenity bubble that had grown between them in the last hour: in that moment he had been the Devil again, and Chloe Decker had been afraid, and she had remembered the reason for her caution toward that creature of nightmares.

In a hurry to follow Lucifer, who had not noticed thankfully anything and was already heading to the garage, she cast a last glance over her shoulder to make sure that she had not forgotten anything on the counter.

There, observing her with a calculating look, was the bartender. 

***

Jimmy Barnes even had the audacity to laugh, that son of a bitch.

"Whitney Houston hit the top ten for album sales after her death. Michael Jackson hit the stratosphere," Chloe was saying to him, barely able to restrain her anger. "I'm not sure you'll get the same heights with Delilah, but those are still a lot of money getting in your pocket, mhh? After all you needed them... "

Lucifer was standing next to her, his hands still in the pockets of his pants. By being so close to her, Chloe could see that he was trembling, barely able to constrain himself. Barnes, on the other side of the recording studio, had ceased smiling.

"...since you've had to pay Deacon with your watch."

Barnes’ face fell, Lucifer walked slowly toward him, and in that moment everything went adrift.

Barnes grabbed the guy who was still recording by his shirt’s collar and pointed a gun at him, starting to shout things like "I’ve made Delilah who she was" and "That bitch humiliated me" that Chloe sensed, from the rigid line of Lucifer’s back, were going to make him lose control. A feeling that Chloe shared in full, having to hear the man’s cynical rant.

"You're not God, Jimmy," Lucifer said in a whisper. "You didn’t made her, you destroyed her. And now I will destroy you."

"Stay back," Jimmy yelled, turning his gun on him and shooting, which of course did not stop him at all. Chloe took advantage of that moment to tell the singer to run away, and slowly she got close behind Lucifer. The last words that Lucifer had spoken, so quiet as to be almost an inaudible hiss, had chilled the blood in her veins; however she could not stay glued on her place, she had to stop Lucifer before it was too late: he would made Barnes face a nightmare worst than Hell itself, and even though Chloe felt that that bastard absolutely deserved it, she could not let that happen.

Alas, she had been so absorbed in these thoughts  that she did not notice that Jimmy, after shooting at Lucifer without success, had pointed the gun at her.


	5. Chapter 5

**5. Rebel, rebel**

 

Light. There was too much light.

Chloe blinked to try to take away the hassle, then turned her head slowly as she regained consciousness. She was at a hospital, apparently, but how had she got there? She remembered that Barnes had shot her, that she had fallen to the ground, and that Lucifer had been almost immediately over her, saying things like "Chloe" and "You will not die, Dad will have to wait" before Barnes had decided to shoot him again, as if the first time he had done it without hitting his target - not realizing, even if it was obvious, that Lucifer could not be killed by bullets.

Well, she had to admit that, without knowing the truth about him, all of it seemed so much more mysterious.

"Look who’s back," said an English accented voice on her right, and Chloe, smiling, turned her gaze to Lucifer, who was sitting in a chair next to her bed. He didn’t have a single scratch and had the slyest smile that Chloe had ever seen on someone’s face.

"How long have I been out?" she asked, smiling when a thought flashed into her mind:  _the guardian Devil has watched over me._

"Three years," he told her seriously, before chuckling at her terrified expression.

"You're such an asshole," she snorted, before the question that was loosely forming in her just-awakened mind assumed defined contours. "What happened to Jimmy?" she asked Lucifer, who immediately turned sober.

"Let's say that Jimmy got what he deserved," he said cryptically, and Chloe reasoned would have to be enough for her, because she was not ready to find out more. Maybe she never would be ready for that.

And then, suddenly, came to her the thought that this was the end. The case had been solved, the perpetrator of Delilah McCord's murder had been found: it was only a matter of writing down the whole affair, formalizing the evidence, and everything would be over. Then Lucifer would no longer be part of her life.

Over the course of that long day several parts of herself would have reacted differently to that information: the first one, who had run away from Eddie Deacon’s house and had spent the night awake with vivid nightmares of being tortured, could not wait for that moment of being free of his presence; the second one, who was in doctor Martin’s office, was way too occupied by thoughts of Lucifer and her mysterious immunity to ponder on what an end really meant; the third one was the one drinking with Lucifer and telling him of her dream to help people, and she was almost saddened by the idea of giving up the best partner she had ever had; the fourth one, her present self, was a little disappointed, but overall she felt incredibly relieved by the news.

Because yes, Lucifer had helped her solve the case, he had even saved her life, and Chloe had to admit that it was fun being around him, even just for his obvious inability to understand the most basic human manners; but in her mind there were vivid scenes of Deacon, Lucifer’s red eyes at Lux, the bullets that had hit him without hurting him, and how he had looked at her when she had not fallen into one of his tricks, or when he had said "but you don’t look at me that way" as if Chloe was a freakshow that he had to analyze.

Everyone in her life had looked at her that way, except for Trixie and her father; she did not need one more person to scrutinise her in order to figure out what was wrong with her. Especially not  _Satan._

"Thank you for saving me," she said sincerely, and Lucifer did a little show to not have heard her; so, she laughed, deciding to humour him and repeat the thanks, reasoning that after all he did really deserve it.

"Well, now detective" Lucifer said, rising and taking his jacket, "I’ll leave you to rest. Tomorrow we’ll decide how to make things work."

"What?" Chloe asked, puzzled, because Lucifer could not certainly be implying that...

“Well, I mean, I've obviously proven myself to be an invaluable crime-fighting tool, right? And you're a pariah in the department. Isn’t it the beginning of a beautiful friendship?"

Chloe’s breath was caught in her throat. He wanted to... work with her? Again?

Lucifer must have noticed the shock on her face, because he frowned and said "Detective?" with a dazed tone. But Chloe didn’t have the time to reply: from the corridor his daughter's voice called "Lucifer”, and almost immediately Trixie darted into the room throwing her arms around Lucifer’s legs.

Lucifer that, Chloe noticed in her hysteric breakdown, was incredibly uncomfortable in Trixie’s semi-embrace; then, as gently as possible, he unclasped her daughter’s hand and placed her next to Chloe on the bed. If she was in any other state of mind she would have found it hilarious, but at that moment she felt too overwhelmed by the situation to find it so; it was only when she was near her daughter - after believing she would die, terrified of never seeing her again and that Trixie would have grow up without her - that she realized she had forgotten that Lucifer was still in the room.

"I would stay for the family reunion, but it's giving me terrible IBS," said Lucifer from the door. "Looking forward to see you soon, Detective."

"I don’t," she said jokingly, but there was more truth in her words that what she could show in front of Trixie.  _Please, never come back._

But Lucifer just laughed, stared at her another second, and said "I'm glad you're not dead" before walking down the hall and disappearing from her sight.

 

**6\. Coda: Sharpening my knife**

 

"Monkey," she said to Trixie two hours later, when her mother and Dan had both come to visit and were now gone, leaving her and her daughter to rest for a while. "How about tomorrow after school we head to the library?"

"Yeah!" her daughter replied, apparently excited by the idea. "Can I get some Batman comics?"

"Deal," Chloe said, amused, "but only one. And then we’ll go get a piece of chocolate cake. What do you say?"

Trixie nodded at that, and Chloe, serene, returned to rest her head on the pillow closing her eyes.

She needed to investigate about the life Lucifer Morningstar had lived since he had come to Earth as well as his previous one, both in Heaven and Hell. For the first task it would take only a minimal investigation, but the second was a more complicated matter - she had the feeling, judging from the experience she’d had with him, that there were as many truths as distorted lies about his history, and Chloe was afraid of failing to extricate herself between the two. Most of all, she feared that any solution she could find to permanently remove him from her life or defend herself would not work, and she could not afford to make any mistakes.

There was a small part of her that still remembered how Lucifer had saved her life, and that part was telling her how ungrateful she was, and paranoid as well, to want to protect herself from a creature that, after all, had never shown any willingness to hurt her. But Chloe silenced that part of herself scowling:  _He’s the Devil, Chloe._   _A semi-positive day does not erase centuries of horror stories. And, apart from that, you saw what he’s capable of: or have you already forgotten Deacon, Barnes? Who can tell that you won’t be the next, or Trixie?_   _How would you stop him, if he decides to harm her?_

She sighed, because the solution that she had found the night before - it had really only been one day? Chloe felt like it was an eternity ago – , the one of having nothing to do with him after the investigation, was now a null one. And judging by how wrong humanity had been of the nature they had granted to  the Devil, Chloe thought that any solution humanity had found to defeat him could be wrong as well.

There was only one way to know the truth: Chloe had to find those protections and try to test them on him.


End file.
